Well, I can try and describe the game for you. It's really nothing at all like Sim City. It's not a building or strategy game, it's a life simulation game.
You start by creating a character. You pick a name, a gender, and some basic appearance details. Then you start the game by arriving in Little London. The presentation is done like a retro top down 2D game, and it looks a lot like Mother 3, except with Layton characters. You move into a small apartment in Little London, and the game is structured like Animal Crossing where there's a day cycle, and you spend the day walking around the same small town talking to people, helping them with fetch quests, etc. You can take on jobs as well which are mini-games which earn you money.
There are stats like Happiness, Wealth, Coolness, Impression, Formality, etc, which are influenced by the things you do, or the clothes you wear. There is no combat in the game. There isn't really much to explore either since it's a pretty small area. It's just a day to day life sim, and every day when you get up you get a newspaper which has a list of "news" which will lead you to quests from certain characters, most of which are fetch quests where you bring something to them, or you bring something to someone else.
It's basically just a light time-waster, like what you would find in many cheap mobile games. There's really nothing meaty about it, and I'm only playing it because it's a freebie that came with the game, and because I like the Layton world and the various characters in the series. The real game is definitely Last Specter itself.